


In a Town of 3,000

by MossadHuntinDog



Category: Eureka (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:00:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25650232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MossadHuntinDog/pseuds/MossadHuntinDog
Summary: In a town of 3,000, one of them isn't where they're supposed to be... Two outtake scenes from I'm Saying Goodbye.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Written: 2012. Rewritten: 2013. Found: 2019.- Licia

Zane had never been so glad to be back in the tiny Oregon town. It was strange; he had once loathed everything about the town, the people, and Jo especially. But after being stuck in that disgustingly horrible simulation, he wanted nothing more than to give every single person in the town a hug- and one very, very special woman a long, deep kiss.

He stepped into Cafe Diem that night after Allison and the crew had been cleared, blue eyes scanning for a very familiar black ponytail and matching pantsuit sitting at the bar, only to find her usual spot empty. Trying to hide the confusion in his eyes he went to the counter, plastering a smile on his face when he saw Vincent. "Hey Vincent, um... where's Jo?"

The chef's smile quickly fell as he set a cup of coffee in front of the younger man. "Didn't you hear, Zane?"

"Here what?"

A moment passed before Vincent leaned close. "Jo left."

Had he really heard correctly? "Ah... I'm sorry, what? What do you mean she left?"

Vincent nodded. "The same day as the launch. That was... four months ago. She never returned. You gonna be okay?"

No, no he wasn't going to be okay. The woman who was the bane of his existence, the woman who believed in him when no one else had, the woman he had very quickly falling in love with was gone, driving away from her home, her job, him... and... she hadn't...

"Oh, Zane."

He looked up to see Carter Allison and the rest of the Time Traveling Five come in. A look of relief briefly crossed Allison's features, before she saw the look on Zane's face, and realized exactly what he'd lost. "Why didn't you tell me, Carter?" He choked out.

"I thought she-"

"She made mention of it, but... but I didn't think she was _serious._.."

Without a word, the others quickly gathered around him; somehow, he found himself being pushed into a chair at a table in the far corner as Grace and Fargo took seats on either side of him while Carter and Henry ordered dinner for all of them. He kept his gaze on the doorway, half expecting Jo to walk through it at any moment, seek him out and stride over with a cheeky, teasing grin on her face at her joke, at the fact that she'd managed to pull a prank on _him_ for once.

"The whole town's been out of wack," Carter said, as he and Henry returned to their seats. "It's like... the Astreaus launch and Jo's leaving... threw the whole town off. Things just... haven't been going right since the launch. Henry and I... we tried calling her, but she left every piece of technology here. We put out BOLOs on her and her car, but found nothing, and that was after we figured that... that maybe we were just overreacting," He stopped, taking a sip of his coffee as Henry took over.

"But then we realized that if she really was on a walkabout, she would have returned after a month or two. And when she didn't, then we really started looking. Managed to get in contact with her older brother Luca up in Boston, but all he would tell us was that Jo had come to visit for a week before disappearing again. He said that if Jo had found a new place, then good for her; he also said that Jo had always been the 'self-discovery' type."

"What does that mean?" Fargo asked, for which Zane was grateful.

"That she was always looking for her place in the world, even when she thought she had her place. That she never felt really content or happy in just one place for very long; he said that to Jo, the constant moving as a kid was the only thing that really settled her nerves, that when she's not moving, she's restless, and has a tendency for causing havoc and wreaking trouble."

"Jo? Trouble?" Grace asked, shifting her seat slightly closer to Zane when Henry reached for her hand.

"Well, we always knew she was trouble with a capital 'T'." Allison muttered, sipping her coffee. Henry and Carter shared a glance; though Carter had gone in and helped the crew get out, Carter hadn't been there for the first few weeks they were stuck in the simulation. They hadn't seen how Jo's NPC had acted around them. But even so, Zane knew it was a simulation, and that Jo, _his_ Jo, would never act that way.

"Not my Jo, Allison. Not the Jo in _this_ time. She's _my_ Jo, not _Carter's_." He glared at the sheriff, who winced. Before anyone could say anymore, Vincent brought over their food, waiting for a moment. "Hey Vincent?" The chef turned to Zane. He knew he was probably going to be his head bit off for this, but figured he'd asked anyway. "Did Jo say... where she was going when she left? Or why?"

Vincent shrugged. "No. She came in that morning for breakfast before going to GD and asked if she could place an order now and pick it up before she left. I asked her where she was going, but all she did was smile. She came and picked it up before going to the sheriff's office. I asked her if she was going to visit family, but all she'd say was that she was getting Hell out of Dodge, and if she was lucky, she wouldn't have to worry about coming back ever again." The others shared glances.

"'If she was lucky?'" Carter asked, and Vincent nodded.

"Yeah." He stopped, thinking. "Jo said something about a job offer somewhere in Canada. Vancouver, I think she said. Something about an old friend and a company she helped start up a few years ago. Sorry, Zane. That's all I got for you." The physicist smiled quickly at him.

"Thanks, Vincent." Once the tubby chef was gone, Zane turned back to the others. "What's this company she was talking about."

Fargo sighed, reaching into the backpack he's slung over his chair and tapping into something before handing it to Zane. "Cross Photonics. It's a... tech company stationed in Vancouver. After Jo was discharged and recovered, she went up to Vancouver. An old friend of hers was starting this new company, and Jo went up to help; probably take her mind off what had happened in Afghanistan. They started it together, Evan Cross, Angelika Finch and Jo. Cross was the CEO, Finch the CFO and Jo the-"

"COO. Jo's the COO of Cross Photonics." Carter said. "I remember her saying something once about having to become the silent partner of the company because she was down here. It was one of the reasons she was so miffed about being passed over for Sheriff when I arrived. The COO of a revolutionary startup tech company, became the deputy of 'Sleepy Hollow' as she called it, who'd given a good number of years to the job, only to be passed over for a Marshal who accidentally stumbled into the town? Might as well go back up to Vancouver." He shook his head.

"Do you think she did that? Went back up to Canada to that company?" Zane asked; part of him was hoping it was true. If it was true, then he had a jumping off point, and could go find her, maybe even convince her to come back.

"That was one of the first places I checked after talking to her brother." Carter admitted. "But when I spoke to him, Evan Cross said that Jo had been there for about a week and then left. She hadn't said anything about where she was going or what her plans were, which isn't like Jo at all. We all know Jo, she'd never just disappear on us unless she had a good reason. Something happened." He glanced at each of them but Zane hadn't taken his gaze off Jo's file. "Something happened, and Jo disappeared, and we have to find her. We have to bring her home. She belongs here in Eureka with us. Eureka doesn't feel like home without Jo."

The others shared glances; only Allison seemed to disagree, and Zane didn't hide the tears swimming in his blue eyes as he finally dragged his gaze from her file. After several minutes, Zane handed Fargo back his tablet, and pushed what was left of his sandwich away. "That's all well and good, lawman, but where do we even start? Jo could be... God knows where now."

Silence fell; Zane had a point. They had a bunch of little pieces, but no real way to tell where they went, for the lid of the box with the puzzle's picture was missing; if they hoped to even have a _chance_ of finding Jo, they needed that box.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So, the first scene was the original scene- the one she wrote and kept but never published (she simply planned on having Jo leave Eureka and never return, kind of like Change of Pace). Apparently, the original story she wrote in roughly 2012/2013 alternated between Jo's new timeline and the Alternate (Post-1947) timeline, with our Jo (Original timeline/Post-1947) ended up in the timeline she's in now, and her counterpart (the her that everyone references in Jo's new timeline) ended up in Jo's timeline, and how they each navigate living in a different timeline while both trying to get home.
> 
> I can't find the original story; she completely erased it, but from her notes, she had our Jo choose to stay in her new timeline even after finding a way to return to her timeline. I didn't see if she had anything for Jo's counterpart. This chapter, is actually a scene she wrote for that original story, but never added. So this, ultimately, can be looked at as an alternate scene (or a glimpse) into what I'm Saying Goodbye was before she scrapped it and rewrote it.
> 
> So, just to clarify, this is the scene that she wrote for her original story- the one that consisted of chapters alternating between timelines. For some reason, she saved it in a separate document to the original story, and then deleted her entire story during her breakdown, saving one scene, however. I've uploaded it as is; I haven't changed anything other than adding this Author's Note. So, enjoy.
> 
> Once again, I'm so, so sorry if it's all too confusing, I'm trying.- Licia

Jo hadn't been there when the Astreaus was found, but that wasn't what hurt. No, what hurt Zane the most wasn't the virtual reality the crew and Allison had been placed in, but the fact that after their four month captivity at the hands of the Consortium, Jo _still_ hadn't returned. Now with six months past since the Astreaus debacle, it was becoming blatantly evident that Jo had been an integral part of the town.

Eureka had been _Eureka_ because of Jo.

The woman who believed she made no impact whatsoever on the tiny Oregon government town, who believed she was simply there to keep the geniuses in check, who often felt that she never should have accepted the offer to come to Eureka in the first place, was actually the glue that held the town together. Sure, Carter had been called the glue, but if anything, it was Jo; Jo had been in this town what? Ten? Twelve? Fourteen? years; she was an integral part of Eureka, as GD was, as government funding and crazy experiments gone wrong were.

Jo was part of Eureka as much as Eureka was a part of Jo.

It wasn't right that she was gone.

They'd tried their hardest to track her down- calling her brother Luca in Boston, contacting her friend Tamsen Blythe, the young blonde stationed on the U.S.S. Hamilton in the middle of the Atlantic, even contacting James Lupo's former military buddy Leroy Jethro Gibbs, who worked for NCIS in D.C., to see if he'd heard from Jo, all to no avail. It was like she'd disappeared off the face of the planet, vanishing into thin air once she crossed the town line. The only thing Luca had been able and willing to give was that she'd called him from a payphone, amid the glitz and glamour of the desert in Southern Nevada, saying something about coming up to visit if she got a chance, but she'd never made it.

Carter had put out BOLOs in all the agencies for her and her little blue Subaru, but nothing turned up. They'd called hospitals, prisons, morgues, even, on the off-chance that something had happened to her; thinking that even if she was either hurt or dead, at least they'd have a body, some piece of Jo to say goodbye to, even if she was no longer living. Each search had turned up nothing. But the biggest surprise had been when they'd checked her little house on Coriolis Loop.

At first, AIDA had been reluctant to let them in, saying that Jo had told her that no one was to enter the house while she was gone, but after they'd told her that Jo hadn't returned, and couldn't be found, she'd allowed them in instantly, worried for the safety of her resident. Carter, Zane, Henry, Grace, Fargo and Allison had stood in shock in the small entrance, mouths hanging open at the sight before them.

Everything personal of Jo's had been boxed up and put away; trinkets, photo albums, CDs and books, all placed in the typical cardboard boxes used for moving. And when Carter had finally choked out his question, all AIDA had given them was,

_"Jo boxed everything up before she left, Sheriff. I asked her if she wanted me to contact Eureka Storage, but she simply shook her head and replied that they wouldn't be needed. That she would handle it, and once she was settled in whatever new place she chose to make her home, she would come back for them. She said that she wished I could go with her, but that asking to take an experimental Smart house would set off alarms and she wouldn't risk it. That even though she would not be returning, she would never put the lives and security of the people she loved so much at risk."_

It had chilled each of them to the bone, and that had been the driving force that sent the five dashing through the house, looking for anything that told them AIDA was lying. What they'd found, however, had made their blood run cold. Tucked beneath her closed laptop on her desk in the small study off the kitchen, her phone sitting atop it, was a small stack of papers.

A form to break her lease on the house, a form to revoke her security clearance, a letter of resignation from GD, and a letter of request to return as an open partner of Cross Photonics.

Cross Photonics.

Zane remembered Jo saying something about how she'd been COO of a Vancouver-based tech company before she'd come to Eureka, and how she had made a pretty good chunk of change to live on for the rest of her life if she wished; she didn't _need_ the job at GD, she _wanted_ to be there. She _chose_ to be there; she could walk away whenever she wanted and still be set for life. But clearly, at some point before the Astreaus launch, Jo had decided that she needed to walk away from Eureka and GD and return to Vancouver.

And now, she was gone, missing for six months, with no trace of her to be found.

The group had gone to Cafe Diem after searching Jo's house, ordering dinner and trying to figure out what to do in regards to Jo. After two hours, their suggestions had run dry and their hope was fading, especially Zane's. No one in the group looked up as the bell above Cafe Diem rang and someone stumbled into the diner. It was only when Vincent's voice broke the quiet, that the group turned. _"Jo?"_

Every head turned; Zane stood, unable to believe his eyes as a very familiar raven head stumbled into the center of the cafe, looking disheveled and shaken. The dark green sweater she wore was ripped on one shoulder and her dark wash jeans were painted in dirt; the black ballet flats she wore were scuffed, and her hair was falling out of its ponytail. There was a streak of blood along her forehead, as if she'd been in an accident, and she looked shaken. Several minutes passed, as her gaze darted quickly around the cafe, before landing on her friends, who were all up and staring at her in shock.

Her dark eyes locked on one of their number, before that familiar voice he'd dreamed of hearing for six months rang out in the quiet cafe.

_"Zane?"_


End file.
